State pension age rise to 67 starts today – here’s when you can retire

Raising the state pension age from 66 to 67 has officially started as of April 2026, bringing with it a long-awaited change that will force millions of workers to wait longer for retirement.

An individual’s exact date of birth will affect when they can claim, with some having to delay their retirement by a month compared to someone born the day before.

The planned changes have been set since 2014 and will affect men and women equally. The state pension age is the earliest age at which anyone can start receiving their state pension, although people can choose to retire earlier than this date and do so if they have private pension rights.

Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell, said: “The state pension is the foundation on which millions of Brits build their retirement plans. But the sands are shifting with a long-running increase in the state pension age to 67 from April this year due to be completed in 2028.”

“In the short term this is a recipe for confusion; during the transition many of those affected will inevitably be completely unaware that it is happening and will consequently be forced to fill an income gap, even if only for a few months.”

From this month, all workers born after April 1960 will begin to see their state pension age increased. This means:

The exact date of birth is important; The last date of birth to keep the retirement age at 66 is April 5, 1960.

For those born on or after April 6, 1960, this period will increase to 66 years and one month and will continue to increase by an extra month on the 6th of each month.

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This situation will continue until March 6, 1961, and the retirement age for those born on or after that day will be 67.

Under current plans, this will apply to people born before the last date of birth of 5 April 1977 and whose retirement age is 67. From now on, it will increase monthly in a similar process to that planned next year.

This also won’t be the last retirement age increase most UK workers see in their lifetimes. Under current legislation, the age will increase from 67 to 68 between 2044 and 2046.

There is speculation that this issue could be brought forward following Labor’s pension review, which was announced in July last year. However, any changes to the state pension age require at least 10 years’ notice.

Since 2015, campaigners from the group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) have called on successive governments to provide compensation for failure to adequately communicate state pension changes for women born between 1950 and 1960. The group was recently told for the second time that there would be no compensation plan.

Mr Selby said: “Given the level of debate we have previously seen about increasing the state pension age, good government communications will be key in the coming months and years.

“A month before you’re eligible for a state pension, you should receive a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) telling you when and how you’ll be eligible for the benefit. For those unsure of their state pension age or entitlement, the government has a few handy online tools that allow you to check both.”

As the phase-in begins, the Center for Aging Better has warned that hundreds of thousands of older people could be pushed into poverty as a result of the shift.

Elaine Smith, head of employment and skills at the seniors charity, said: “While raising the state pension age would deliver significant financial benefits of up to £10bn for the Treasury, it also has real-world negative consequences for people in their sixties.

“The last time the state pension increased to 66, poverty for 65-year-olds doubled.

“The rise to age 67 is likely to have larger impacts, particularly for groups with low private pension provision, so we are likely to see sharp increases in pre-retirement poverty and greater reliance on working age benefits.”

When workers can retire in 2026, based on when they were born: